Less Art, More Commercialism?

Now I sound like a terrible Hollywood cliche, don't I? Don't do it the right way, sell it! Sell it hard!

Truthfully, that's the way to go. If you don't sell it, people don't read it, and the best art is about sharing and showing, right? Changing minds and attitudes?

Well, that's the theory, anyway.

Still, there's a fine line between art like ET, exploring the alienation of divorce, the escapism of a small boy running away from harsh reality, and art like Eragon. In a word... meaning.

If your meaningful art isn't going to sell, it doesn't matter.

And if your art that'll sell doesn't have meaning, it won't actually sell, hopefully, but even if it does... it doesn't matter either.

Great art is like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. That movie was the pinnacle of the Civil Rights Movement, really. Heston marched with King, you know. Not many remember it now. Heston led a boycott of Hollywood restaurants that were still discriminating.

He took Cecil B DeMille's epic and made it about racism, slavery, and bigotry. Listen to his impassioned speeches.... "What gives one man the right to own another?"

If he were another filmmaker, say one of the great message makers of our time, it would be an art film. One that would go on for about three hours, would go well at Sundance, and nobody would ever see.

But he mixed the commercialism of deMille with his own passion for the cause. That mixture did well, and may have changed minds. (I hope it did; his cause was certainly just)

That's my goal for myself. Something I can publish; something people will read; something with meaning.

Not too ambitious, huh?